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We are pleased to announce that the LIAT-Ph Knowledge Alliances project is funded with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union.

We are pleased to report that we have developed 4 educational short courses through the LIAT-Ph project. These courses are freely available to anyone engaged in academia or the pharmaceutical industry in Europe.
Further details of these courses and how to access same may be found under the “Download” section of the website.

Project Objectives:

The objectives of the project are to:

Explore the learning needs of pharmacy students, at the undergraduate and postgraduate level and practising pharmacists, in the different (participant) countries, in relation to the competencies in industrial pharmacy which have been identified through a previous EU-funded project, the Pharmine project (www.pharmine.org), and in relation to any additional competencies identified by the industrial and academic partners in the context of current developments in the bio/pharmaceutical sector ;

Work together (academia and industry from all participant countries) on the development of curricula (content and teaching/learning methods and educational materials) that will ensure the required competencies for industrial pharmacist are covered at an appropriate level. Focus will be placed on enhancing student engagement, developing problem solving skills and encouraging innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. Academic staff upskilling will form part of the curriculum update and delivery process;

Develop and deliver joint modules, as part of a structured PhD programme and/or continuing professional development courses for industrial pharmacists and other professionals working in the bio/pharmaceutical industry with a focus on bio/pharmaceutical product development and manufacture.

The pharmaceutical industry continues to develop to respond to challenges of an ageing population and more complex medicinal products. Significant developments in pharmaceutical product development include a shift towards Quality by Design in manufacturing processes, the increasing importance of biopharmaceutical (large molecule) products and the move to stratified medicines, which will result in company product portfolios becoming much more expansive.

Industrial pharmacists should be equipped to respond to the challenges of the rapidly changing environment in which they work. They should be capable of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team comprising pharmacists, chemists and engineers, as companies seek an increasingly more integrated approach to the product development cycle, from molecule to material to drug product.

In order to respond to the learning needs and educational demands posed by such a dynamic environment, the rapidly increasing knowledge base and the need for specialised knowledge, the necessity for partnership and closer collaboration between academia and industry has been recognised on the national, as well as wider, regional and EU level.

The need for involvement of professionals from pharmaceutical industry in the design and delivery of relevant curricula, as well as further training of academic staff in specialised areas related to different advanced technologies has been identified as a prerequisite for ensuring high quality standards of academic programmes at all levels.

The LIAT-Ph consortium provides a mix of: higher education institutions and specifically Schools or Faculties of Pharmacy within those institutions, small to medium enterprises and a large biopharmaceutical company. The LIAT-Ph project seeks to address learning needs at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels, as well as addressing the continuing professional development (CPD) needs of the practising industrial pharmacist.

Anne Marie Healy is Professor in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology and Head of School in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin. She has a B.Sc. in Pharmacy and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics, both from the University of Dublin. She joined the School of Pharmacy, TCD in 1992 as a Lecturer in Pharmaceutics. In 2010 she was elected Fellow of Trinity College.

Professor Healy has over 60 peer reviewed publications; she has given over 100 presentations at national and international conferences, graduated 14 PhD students and mentored 11 postdoctoral researchers. She is co-Principal Investigator of the Synthesis and Solid state Pharmaceutical Centre (SSPC), a Research Centre which was recently awarded €40 million in funding from Science Foundation Ireland and pharmaceutical industry partners for a six year programme of research.